


Bærn

by Raven100104



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 10:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13855677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raven100104/pseuds/Raven100104
Summary: Overtime, it eventually wears down, wears down the warlock like endless little cuts—harmless at first glance, but excruciating in large quantities. The lack of kindness, that is.





	Bærn

It’s been a long time coming, when one thinks about it. Every bandit attack, every magical threat, every royal arse that struts into Camelot threatening (and sometimes, succeeding) to beat the living daylight out of the manservant under the Prince’s nose, Merlin braves through it with one goal in mind: protect Arthur.

Over the years, the task at hand gets harder. It’s not that Merlin desires any reward, or even recognition. No. That’s not why he does it. But overtime, it eventually wears down, wears down the warlock like endless little cuts—harmless at first glance, but excruciating in large quantities. The lack of kindness, that is.

\---

A step. Then another. And another. Merlin stumbles blindly through the forest, disoriented, his vision fading in and out and he can’t tell which way is North and which way is South and there are sounds, sounds everywhere. There’s a blurry doe to the right, maybe it’s a buck, maybe…maybe. He must’ve been walking for leagues, at least that’s what it feels like. His sight is spotted now, the forest dotted by grays and blacks and fire, he smells fire; no, not fire, a smoke from a bit further ahead.

Arthur.

Groaning, the young warlock wills his feet to move, and the leaves crunch noisily under his dirtied, holed boots. His mind leaves him momentarily, and suddenly he’s back in Arthur’s chambers, lazing against the window, listening to the mannerless prat chew loudly on an apple as he looks over some important map for some important thing he had to do for some important person. Merlin feels his lips curl, just a bit, and then the grays and blacks return and his eyelids feel so heavy…maybe just a quick…nap.

Hooves. Hooves snap him back to reality, and he could feel them coming from both directions, surrounding him. 

“Farbaernan.” Merlin glares at his hand, but the small flame whips in his palm like a vengeful snake for only a moment before withering away. 

There’s just, no more magic.

“Merlin, duck!” is the only notice he gets before an arrow whizzes past his head and knocks down his ex-captor from his horseback. The next thing he knows, the battle is over and men donned in Pendragon Red are making their way towards him.

“Merlin! You’re alright! I told you we’d save you.” Arthur stares up at him, a shit-eating grin on his face and blue eyes shining that almost begins to warm Merlin’s chest until a stern look replaces the Prince’s feature. “Don’t do that again, you just can’t help causing me trouble wherever you go, can you?”

Merlin stiffens, though only slightly, before Arthur reaches out and pats him roughly on the arm. The blond knight turns to head back and Merlin almost reaches out, almost calls after his king, almost wants to tell him that no, he’s not alright, that Arthur can’t just, just _assume_ , that those men did things to him, almost. Always…almost. Because Arthur pats him on the arm and tells him to stop being a girl and the conversation ends. There are so many almosts that when Gwaine actually pulls him in, warm and tight against his chest, the warlock positively crumbles.

“Merlin, hey Merlin, what’s wrong?” Gwaine hushes urgently, eyes wide. The knight clings tighter onto the set of skin and bones and pets at the black mob of hair. “Are you hurt? Are you-do you need- wh-what do you need? Merlin talk to me!” Alarmed, Arthur comes rushing back.

“ _Mer_ lin for God’s sake-” Arthur pushes at Gwaine to run a hand down Merlin’s spine, but Gwaine refuses to let go of his friend, adamantly kissing his hair to offer some sort of comfort.

Gwaine's attention only makes Merlin cry harder, hot tears dampening his crimson scarf and his face scrunches up terribly the way it does. The knight goes to pull away to check for injuries when Merlin screams.

“Don’t! Please, please you can’t ‘bandon me!” He sobs, shoulders crumbling as his sentences slur into incoherence. “I know ‘m just a servant, but please, ‘m begging, don’t leave m’behind, not ‘gain…”

“Merlin, we’re not leaving you, you know that.” Arthur assures, his voice still stern and unwavering, the same tone he would use to inspire confidence within his knights.

When the crestfallen warlock remains inconsolable, Gwaine goes to add, “We’d never leave you Merlin, not now, not ever." Only then does Merlin calm, sobs interrupted by intermittent hiccups. Something in Arthur stirs.

“Right. Now if you’re done, let’s head home, we’ve got a long way ahead of us.” The Prince bites out curtly, albeit softly, now.

\---

He is not displeased, he isn’t. In fact, Gwaine is just being a good friend, offering to ride with Merlin, is he not? There is no reason for Arthur to be displeased. But he isn’t pleased, which, in itself, causes him to be, well, displeased.

Merlin has never really cried like that. Sure, Arthur’s seen his servant shed tears, many a times in fact, but never quite like that. He gets upset when the people of Camelot suffer, and it’s…upsetting, not displeasing. So what is it? The quest has gone well despite their little hiccup, but Merlin is back and safe, so why? So is Arthur displeased that Merlin’s horse now carries both Gwaine and Merlin’s belongings, and Gwaine’s horse carries himself and Merlin? Perhaps it’s the horses. Treating those majestic creatures unfairly is surely the cause of Arthur’s displeasure, surely.

Arthur is quickly interrupted from his thoughts when Gwaine calls for them to halt. In his daydreams, he hadn’t noticed the little whines emitting from Merlin’s throat when the terrains get too uneven for the horses to trot smoothly, but Gwaine did, pressed up right against Merlin.

“Gwaine, it’s alright.” Merlin murmurs softly to Gwaine, who is rummaging through the other horse for their supplies, as if afraid that Arthur will hear. Arthur does, anyway. “I just want to go home.”

Gwaine turns back, cups Merlin’s hands in his. “Just give me a mo’, alright? I want you to be comfortable.”

“But-”

“You’d do the same for me Merlin.” Gwaine smiles sadly, kindly. “You have.”

As he continues to dig through the bags, Arthur rides up next to the duo with the sudden need to be by the boy. The Prince allows his leg to brush Merlin’s. “What’s wrong?” He asks lowly, like there’s a secret between them that Gwaine mustn’t know about.

“Nothing, sire.” Merlin mumbles, and Arthur notes that Merlin has yet to look him in the eye all this time.

“Merlin, if you’re hurt somewhere, you must tell me this instant.” Again, Merlin looks away, jaw clenched. “You’ve hardly spoken all day. As much as I enjoy the quiet, your mindless chatter is probably one of your only redeemable qualities. In fact, it’s the only one. So if nothing’s wrong, I’d very much like something other than unnerving silence, I don’t know, make yourself useful.”

Something in Merlin snaps.

“I’m not yours to use!” He seethes, knuckles whitening on their tight grip of the reins, trembling. Gwaine notes the change instantly, and returns to Merlin’s side with the sheet he found.

“No, of course not Merlin, Arthur’s just being…idiomatic.” Gwaine assures quickly as he slips up behind the young warlock, arms resting firmly around his body so he can place his warm hands on Merlin’s trembling ones.

Arthur doesn’t seem to notice. “Hang on a minute Gwaine, he’s my manservant, his job is to serve me.” He says lightly, as if expecting Merlin to banter back like he always does, but all that happened is Gwaine nudging his horse into a run, and only then does Merlin melt back into the knight’s chest. The prince can do nothing but watch, as a few meters ahead, his own knight folds up the sheet and slides it onto the saddle beneath Merlin to cushion the impact of the horse trot.

\---

Gwaine may be a lot of things: rash, perhaps; loyal, yes; a frequent patron of The Rising Sun, most definitely, but Gwaine is nothing if not observant.

Over the years, Gwaine had figured out many things, standing in the sidelines. Things like how Merlin disappears at the most opportune moments, how trees and rocks seem to fall at these opportune moments, and how the future king seems to refuse to sack the “worst servant Camelot has ever known” on a daily basis.

When Morgana kidnapped Merlin, Gwaine had been dropping hints. “Our good ol’ Merlin, always doing everything for everyone just for the good of it, never asking anything in return,” he had said, in different words, under different circumstances, but always the same thing. They found Merlin that time, covered in dirt and grass, and perhaps Gwaine’s incessant chatter had caught up to Arthur, but that time, only that time, did Arthur run up to his manservant, diamonds in his eyes, and pulled him into a hug.

For Merlin’s sake, that needs to happen again.

\---

“Will you be needing anything else, Sire?” Merlin asks tentatively, eyes trained on the ground. Arthur doesn’t know whether he remembers the color of Merlin’s eyes, and the mere thought unsettles him greatly.

“No, that’ll be all, thank you Merlin.” He murmurs softly.

“Then I bid you goodnight, Sire.” Bowing slightly, Merlin turns to the double door.

“Merlin?”

“Yes Sire?” Merlin turns back, confused. It’s been a few days since their return, and he’s been requesting to leave at the earliest convenience, and Arthur hasn’t stopped him from doing so until this night. He looks to the general direction of his prince, awaiting his request.

“Arthur.”

“Sire?” Merlin’s brows furrow, and he becomes puzzled by Arthur’s sudden declaration.

“My name. It’s Arthur.”

“Yes, Sire.” What? “Are you feeling alright?”

“You haven’t called me by my name in three days. No insolence. No insults. I haven’t even seen you smile!” Arthur stands, worried, but his voice remains quiet. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. There just hasn’t been a reason to smile, is there?” The wizard retorts quickly, making for the door. “If there’s nothing you’ll require of me…”

“No,” says Arthur, quieter than he was before. “You may go.”

Arthur doesn’t watch as his servant leaves, doesn’t watch as he wobbles through the courtyard, definitely doesn’t watch as he runs straight into Gwaine’s arms. He doesn’t.

And if he does run Gwaine twice as hard on the training field, no one mentions it.

\---

On the first fortnight, Arthur consults Gwaine.

“What’s wrong with Merlin?” He says abruptly.

Gwaine sputters from the tavern’s counter, dribbling ale everywhere before wipes it hastily with the back of his hand.

He turns to the prince. “There’s nothing _wrong_ with Merlin.”

“You know damn well that’s not what I meant!” Arthur snaps, “he’s hurt, he’s in pain, and he won’t tell me why. But for some reason, he talks to you, why is that?! What do you see?”

“Princess.” Gwaine sighs heavily, rubbing his nose. “Our Merlin has suffered enough, why don’t you ask him yourself?”

“I can’t.”

“Why’s that, hm?” Gwaine drawls, just inebriated enough to sound nonchalant, though his eyes have yet to glaze, and are set upon the prince like a vigilant animal.

“I’m the Prince.” Arthur says indignantly, “I can’t be seen doting after a peasant.”

“Listen up, my lord,” Gwaine all but spits, “Merlin is every bit as peasant as I, as Lancelot and Percival and Elyan. You will do well to remember that.” Pushing himself away from the table, Gwaine stands, and exits the tavern curtly, leaving behind a crown prince, unsettled in his own kingdom.


End file.
